


Snakebit

by weshes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Rick Grimes/Michonne, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s07e08 Hearts Still Beating, Tags Are Hard, post-episode, respectful of canon Rick/Michonne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18878002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weshes/pseuds/weshes
Summary: Daryl has always been Rick's strength. Sometimes his heart, when he could barely remember how to feel. Rick knows that whatever comes next, it will only happen once -- but he's done holding back.





	Snakebit

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Rick and Daryl's reunion in ep 07x08, Hearts Still Beating.

Hilltop doesn't feel any safer than Alexandria does. These days Rick is pretty sure there's nowhere he won't feel Negan's reach, Negan's eyes on him. He looks at Carl and sees a precious liability, wild and dangerous, fully out of Rick's control. It's how he raised his son to be - how he wanted him to be, to survive - and yet it brings him no comfort at all. 

They're all scarred and dirty now. Some of them have stopped caring about things they can't control. But Rick hasn't. Never will. Always a plan in the back of his mind, where the cop who used to be still lives. That man cared about order, about right. About saving lives and living by the word of law. But there's a reason Rick put that version of himself in a box at the back of the shelf. He's a rogue's gallery of men these days - murderer, thief, dictator. 

But he knows he's not a monster, because when he sees Daryl alive again, whole, he remembers what it is to be grateful. This rush of love is how it feels to lose part of himself, and gain it back again. 

He'd been careful not to give any of his heart away for so long. Easier to survive if pieces aren't breaking off every day. But he has a family now; an ending brought about this beginning, and this is what living means. 

He looks at Daryl and wants to ask - _what did they do to you there? Who do I need to kill?_ Daryl's head stays down a lot of the time like he's ashamed, and the fire of that burns in Rick's belly. He wants to lift Daryl's head, see his eyes and reassure him; he wants to take all that unnecessary shame into himself and turn it to ash. 

All these things he wants, and yet he wastes time in meetings for the good of the group, listening to people talk about preparations and war. Listening to his own silence. There are plans he wants to make, ideas to set forth, but he's not ready yet. 

Daryl is silent alongside him, and where their bodies don't touch, there's a foot of empty air Rick wants to eradicate. The thought would have shocked him in that other life, the one before he was a murderer and a dictator and a man who never knew what it might cost to stay alive in the land owned by the dead. But he's barely the shape of that man, and not much of what was inside him then is still there. Hope, maybe. Love, for sure. 

It's love that makes him understand, and keeps him from reaching across that empty space. 

Michonne puts up with two nights of his tossing and turning on the hard floor of their room, underneath borrowed blankets. She's put up with more than her fair share and Rick knows it. That's why he doesn't ask. Can't. They're all family, but it goes beyond that. What he'd do for Carl, or Michonne. For Daryl, most of all. Michonne knew it before they got involved. He's never tried to hide from her. 

She sits up near 4AM that second night, and wraps her arms around him. "Just go to him," she says quietly. 

"He won't want that," Rick says. Surprising himself, by how fast he says it, and how much he hopes it isn't true. 

"Maybe. Maybe not. But you need it. Maybe he does, too." 

So he leaves her there, wide awake. They're all wide awake now, their eyes seared open by truth and pain. And he crosses the Hilltop to the room Daryl's hiding in, because there's no other word for it. His presence inside has made it a fortress, and no one dares enter. 

No one sleeps anymore, seems like; Daryl opens the door when he hears Rick's footsteps on the creaking wood floor. "You forget how to be quiet while I was away?" he asks, not so much a joke as an irritable warning. 

"Wasn't tryin' to be." Rick waits, because he's not going to cross the threshold, no matter how much he wants it. Not until Daryl asks him to.

He doesn't ask with words, but Daryl's body angles to the side, making space for Rick, and Rick steps in. When the door closes behind him, he doesn't move; neither of them moves. They're stopped in time, trapped in the awkwardness of needing, of not knowing how to be what they are to each other. 

"I want you to tell me," Rick says, and his voice sounds like blood on broken glass. "All of it. Everything."

"Not much to tell." Daryl does move then, sits down with his back to the fireplace, though his gaze does go toward the door. Always on the knife's edge, waiting. 

Rick's thought about what he'd do if Negan showed right then. That bastard wouldn't survive it. None of his people would. He'd pay Negan what he was owed, at Daryl's side, before he'd let Negan touch any of them again. Maybe he'd die. Maybe Daryl would, too. But they'd be free, and maybe being free is all there is left to hope for, no matter the form that takes. 

"Then it won't take long." Rick sinks to his knees beside Daryl where he's hunched by the fire. 

"They had me in a cell, most of the time. In the dark. Negan liked to play tricks. Test me." Daryl put his head down on his arms. Voice muffled, he goes on. "Tried to force me to join them."

"Force you?"

"Tricks. Lies. Threats." Daryl raises his head, and though his hair covers most of his face, his eyes gleam in the firelight. "No fuckin' way I was joining them. They killed my family."

Rick nods, because he can't speak. Daryl has always been his strength. Sometimes his heart, when he could barely remember how to feel. 

"We gotta stand up to him now," Daryl said. "No matter what. It'll cost, but so what? What are we if we can't live some kind of lives?" 

"I agree. We all agree." Rick rests his palms on his knees. Open hands, better shaped to a gun; he feels empty without the comfort of weapons. His own rests heavy on his hip, a comfortable and welcome weight. "That's what we came here for. To tell them. To get them ready."

"You think that pussy Gregory is going to go along with this?"

"Well if he don't, there's always another way."

"You mean there's Maggie," Daryl says. The glint of his eyes in the firelight is purest pride. "She owes him. We all owe him somethin' now. And he's going to get what's comin' to him."

They sit quiet for a while, while the fire pops and consumes the wood, a slow but necessary death. Fine tremors run through Daryl's body, not shivers, but something more. Energy leashed, maybe, or horrors trying to surface. 

Rick only knows a little of Daryl's childhood, but he knew Merle, and from that it's easy to figure what monsters might have populated the brothers' world. He has suspicions about why Daryl's hatred of darkness was born, and maybe, why his loyalty is so fierce, once it's given. 

There are still bruises on Daryl's arms and neck. They're faded to yellow-green, but they've hung on long enough for Rick to see them. For fears to form around them, complicated and white-hot, like the spark that sets off rage. 

"Did they," Rick starts, and then he can't go on. Baseball bats are one thing, but the angry touch of a human hand is another. Both are objects of terror in the right context.

"It ain't like that there," Daryl says, understanding him perfectly. "Whatever else they might do, that ain't a part of it. Least not like you're thinking." 

"Good," Rick says, and the anger inside him dies down to a manageable level again. Sometimes he marvels at this temper he seems to have acquired from thin air the day he woke up in a dead and dying world. He shifts sideways off his knees and sits so he can see Daryl's face. 

There's not a question anymore of what they'll do for each other. There's nothing left in the 'wouldn't do' column. Hasn't been for years. 

All he wants is to touch, to hold fast, to keep close. So he does, without another thought; he folds Daryl into his arms, absorbs Daryl's shaking into his own body. If he could merge them together into one, keep Daryl safe, he would. But he can't keep anybody safe. They don't have anything they can call their own. It's just this moment, just this place. 

What they have is here. What they are is...what they are. 

He holds Daryl for a long time, listening to the snapping fire, and the silence beyond. The quietness of the world in these days is a thing he tries not to think too much about. It's the absence that bothers him, the void that creates the silence. 

In the quiet, he thinks through scenarios for safety - where Daryl must go, to keep him alive. 

"You don't gotta protect me," Daryl says, like he can read Rick's mind. Probably he can. They've traveled a long road together.

"This ain't that." Rick holds on tighter, because he isn't sure how to let go. "He's gonna come for you." 

"Which is why I'm going to the Kingdom."

"No. No, you belong with - with your family. Here, or in Alexandria. We fight," Rick says, but even as he says it, Daryl shakes his head and sits up, breaking Rick's hold. 

"We ain't ready. We've got to give ourselves the best chance there is before we take Negan on. We can't lose again." 

"We could hide you. Maybe keep you in one of the root cellars."

"Like that isn't the first place they'll look? They find me, they'll try to take me," Daryl says. His eyes are clear, his gaze steady on Rick. What he doesn't say, can never say, is what they both know - that Rick can't let that happen. Won't let it happen. And Daryl will die before he goes back there. Rick sees it in the calm, determined set of Daryl's shoulders. 

Once, forever ago, Rick had thought Daryl might find something with Beth, or maybe Carol. Something good, something based in kindness, a little respite in their never-ending war. New enemies all the time, but the same basic struggle every day. But Daryl stayed on the center line, and never moved that direction. 

Rick had seen him looking at Jesus, and he'd seen Jesus looking back. That was new. But it wasn't a surprise. Rick knew it for truth when he felt the hollowness inside him open up. It was like being snakebit -- a slow and inevitable pain winding its way through his body and right into his heart. 

All any of them can hope for is to love each other, and edge back from the darkness for a while. Michonne has been the light at the center of his world, but the hollow feeling in his chest won't ease up. It's not like she doesn't understand; their world is too narrow to be anything but full with each other, save for the hollow places she can't touch. It's why she sent him here. She has always seen what no one else sees. 

Rick knows before he moves that whatever comes next, it will only be this once, but he's done holding back. He unbuckles his gun belt, removes it and sets it aside, and Daryl's eyes track every motion. Waiting. 

Whatever he thought it would be like, the reality of it - Daryl's body, scarred and thin, but warm beneath his fingertips - crashes into him and makes his hands shake. But it doesn't stop him, and when they're bare to each other, it's just an extension of how they've always been together. More than brothers. Far more than friends born of circumstance. Daryl's hands are rough, but he gentles them when Rick shivers against him, when their mouths press together in a kiss and then press again, deeper. 

They shake apart, together, and something inside Rick that had been fading begins to mend. 

After, they curl together in the scratchy-soft blankets by the hearth, and watch the fire kick and fuss as it begins to die down. Daryl rests his hand over Rick's, and Rick is already beginning to miss this casual touch - the kind of affection Daryl will never allow outside of this space. 

"I know you're going to go," Rick says, his voice low and hoarse. "I know, and I understand, but-"

"Don't," Daryl says, wrapping his fingers around Rick's wrist. "You've got a family to protect, and the further away I am, the easier that'll be if he comes before we're ready." 

"You gonna make me say it?" Rick asks. The memory is an echo in his mind: _You're family too._

"You don't gotta say what we both know. It's all the more reason for me to leave." Daryl doesn't move his hand.

It'll be morning soon. Time to get up and face another set of arguments about how to survive. Hours and minutes don't mean what they used to before the world died. Now it's just darkness and daylight, and they're caught in-between. 

Rick closes his eyes, and drifts off to a restless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my friend L a long while ago but she said I should post it, so here it is. ::nervous smile::


End file.
